Hands-on: Motorola Atrix’s Ubuntu-powered WebTop experience

In this follow-up to our review of the Motorola Atrix 4G, we take a close …

Motorola's Atrix 4G smartphone was one of the most promising products unveiled at CES earlier this year. The innovative handset can plug into a netbook shell accessory, offering a desktop-like computing experience. The netbook shell contains no processor, memory, network hardware, or internal storage—it relies entirely on the docked phone to provide those essentials.

Motorola envisions a future in which smartphones are at the heart of the connected lifestyle, adapting and integrating with peripherals to meet the user's computing needs. The Atrix is a significant first step in that direction. Although the underlying concept is extremely intriguing, the implementation still leaves a lot to be desired.

We put the Atrix hardware through its paces earlier this month in our review of the handset and the docking accessories. In this follow-up, we will take a close look at the Atrix's software, albeit without screenshots, as taking screenies in the desktop environment is impossible without rooting the device.

When the user plugs the Atrix into the netbook accessory docking connector, it will start up the embedded WebTop software environment. The WebTop platform is based on the Ubuntu Linux distribution. The user interface consists of the Firefox Web browser, a dock based on the Avant Window Navigator, and a handful of components adapted from the GNOME desktop environment. It has custom theming that prominently features black gradients.

The Web browser

As the name implies, the WebTop environment is principally intended for accessing Web content and applications. It comes with a conventional desktop version of Firefox 3.6 that works exactly as you would expect. The WebTop also comes bundled with Prism, a Mozilla Labs technology that allows Web applications to run in their own individual windows on the desktop as separate processes outside of the browser.

To evaluate the Firefox browser's performance in the Atrix's WebTop environment, we ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. The final score was an unimpressive 6116.2ms. Despite the weak JavaScript performance, it proved to be acceptable for some heavier Web applications like Google Maps.

The browser comes fully equipped with Adobe's Flash plug-in for rendering rich media, but Flash performance proved to be exceptionally poor in the WebTop environment. Flash animations slowed down page scrolling speed to an extent that seriously undermined the usefulness of the browser. The problem was easily remedied, however, by installing the Flashblock extension.

MobileView

One of the most significant features of the WebTop environment is the MobileView—a direct on-screen interface to the Android software environment on the Atrix handset. It allows you to use the netbook shell's touchpad and keyboard to interact with your phone through a floating window in the WebTop environment.

When it first starts, you see your home screen exactly as it appears on the handset. You can click shortcuts, launch software from the application drawer, and interact with it exactly as you would normally. The window itself is resizable, allowing you to stretch the phone environment to whatever size is most comfortable.

A toolbar along the bottom of the window has clickable icons that represent Android's standard menu, home, back, and search icons. There is also an icon for toggling the window between landscape and portrait orientation and one for expanding it to full-screen mode. The top of the window displays a bar of tabs representing the applications that are running on the phone. The tabs serve as a task switcher that integrates with Android's internal multitasking capabilities.

The value of the MobileView is that it provides full access to your Android applications through the netbook shell, but the experience is still fundamentally phone-like. Android's kinetic scrolling, for example, was not particularly pleasant to use on the netbook shell's mediocre trackpad.

To evaluate the performance of the MobileView interface, I tested it with the popular Glow Hockey game. The game performed just as well through the MobileView as it does on the handset. The animations didn't stutter and the particle effects looked exactly as expected, even when I increased the size of the window. There is, however, a small amount of input latency. The MobileView appears to lag slightly in relaying mouse activity to the Android software as touch events. The lag is so subtle that I only noticed it while testing the game—it largely won't impact regular usage.

The WebTop environment doesn't offer a whole lot of integration yet with the underlying phone software stack, but there are a few clever features that hint at broader integration potential. For example, a black panel that runs along the top of the screen in the WebTop environment will display icons representing the current items in the Android notification panel. When I get a new direct message on Twitter, it will show a Twitter icon in the WebTop panel that I can click to launch the social networking application in the MobileView phone environment.

Filesystem and multimedia

Another point of integration is the filesystem. The WebTop comes with GNOME's Nautilus file manager, which you can use to browse the phone's internal storage or microSD card. This is especially great for a getting a bigger view of photos that you captured with the phone's camera. You can double-click the photo jpeg files to load them into the browser.

Certain kinds of files will automatically open in Android applications in the MobileView when you double-click them in the WebTop file manager. For example, if you download a Microsoft Word (.docx) file through Firefox and double-click it in the file manager, it will open in QuickOffice in the Android environment and be fully editable through the MobileView.

Another useful application that comes bundled with the WebTop environment is the Entertainment Center, a full-screen multimedia application in the same vein as Front Row. It has a simple keyboard-controlled user interface for navigating and playing multimedia content from the phone's internal storage. Annoyingly, the phone's DLNA features don't appear to be accessible through the Entertainment Center interface.

Security

The WebTop environment is heavily locked down and designed to block users from running arbitrary software. The TOMOYO Linux Mandatory Access Control framework appears to be one of the security measures in use.

Although there are a lot of conventional GNOME applications hidden away on the filesystem, the security restrictions of the WebTop environment only allow the end user to open the small handful of applications that are presented through the panels. Similarly, the Nautilus file manager is barred from navigating up the filesystem hierarchy to areas outside of the sandboxed paths with user files.

I made a few trivial attempts to circumvent these lockdown mechanisms (I was trying to get the GNOME screenshot tool to run), but wasn't particularly successful. I discovered that you can see other parts of the filesystem by using the save dialog in Firefox or putting a "file:///" URL into the browser. Using that method, I was able to copy a launcher from "/usr/share/applications" into the regular storage area. When I tried to execute the launcher through Nautilus, however, I got a permission error.

Users who want to customize the WebTop environment and run other software will have to resort to rooting. The procedure involves rooting the Atrix handset itself and then using ADB to unlock root access for the WebTop environment. The modding community has taken to affectionately describing the maneuver as "double-rooting." After the WebTop environment is rooted, you can run a terminal and use some of the other software that is included. It's worth noting, however, that you still can't just install arbitrary applications—software has to be compiled for ARM in order to run in the environment.

The interface

The WebTop interface has a panel at the top and a dock at the bottom. The left-hand side of the dock has launchers for the MobileView and several core Android components that are accessed through the MobileView. The right-hand side of the dock has the launcher for the browser and other websites.

You can click the plus button on the right-hand side to add launchers for specific websites—it lets you choose whether you want the site to open in a Prism window or as a new tab in the browser. The dock is kind of simplistic, but it's useful if you want to have a website like Google Docs open in its own window.

On the left-hand side of the dock there is a button that launches the window switcher. It shows thumbnails of all the windows and lets you select which one to bring to the front. A similar interface is associated with the alt-tab keyboard shortcut.

As I stated earlier, the left side of the panel at the top of the screen houses the notification area. The right side of the panel is dedicated to various status indicators and menus. You can control the network, GPS, and Bluetooth settings, see the battery status, or adjust the volume.

Persistence

One of the most impressive characteristics of the WebTop environment is its support for persistence. When you unplug the phone from the dock, the state of the whole environment will be preserved. When you start the WebTop environment back up later, it will be in exactly the same condition as when you left. All of your windows and tabs will remain open and will remember their positions.

This worked pretty well, but it wasn't entirely flawless. On two occasions during my tests of the device, it seemed to reset instead of restoring the previous state. I wasn't able to reproduce the issue consistently, however.

An application on the Android side will allow you to look at the tabs that you had open in your last WebTop session, making it easy to pick up where you left off without having to plug the phone back into the dock.

Conclusion

The concept of a netbook-like accessory for smartphones isn't exactly new. We have seen a handful of similar products in the past, including the ill-fated Palm Folio and the Redfly mobile companion devices. Motorola's implementation is pretty compelling, though still quite limited.

It needs more applications and better phone integration in the WebTop environment. At present, the lack of software selection is really what limits the netbook shell accessory from being competitive with a conventional netbook. The mediocre browser performance and low quality of the keyboard and trackpad on the shell itself are also problematic.

Despite the general lack of mainstream usefulness and the weaknesses in the user experience, the Atrix WebTop platform seems to have a lot of potential. There's a lot of real innovation going on in this product and so much room for great improvements that it's hard to not be excited about the possibilities. If Motorola can bring more courage and imagination to the project, it could deliver a great computing experience across multiple form factors.

74 Reader Comments

Well flash have always been a performance hog, so i am not surprised. Wonder if Motorola will push a firefox4 update once it is ready, and what sunspider results it will produce. All in all it sounds like the concept is sound, but more polish is needed.

It's an interesting idea of course. But I just don't see why anyone would want to buy this over a netbook. It's the same amount of money, same weight, but severely more limited. Everything it can do, something else can do better.

1) Quad-core CPUs to make up for the lack of computing power2) Chrome OS instead of Ubuntu3) Chrome web browser4) 2GB RAM5) Extension like ClicktoFlash installed by default to prevent the CPU from wasting cycles on Flash ads.

Until then, I predict continuing problems with performance, particularly in the Flash arena. And the even funnier thing is that Hulu is probably going to block this too, regardless of the fact that it's a full desktop environment.

Funny thing is that a phone with these specs in 2003 would have browsed the web perfectly fine. It's just that the web is ever evolving, and websites in 2003 are nothing like the Javascript-heavy versions of 2011.

It's an interesting idea of course. But I just don't see why anyone would want to buy this over a netbook. It's the same amount of money, same weight, but severely more limited. Everything it can do, something else can do better.

If the cost were right, the dock should at MOST cost $200. AT&T is just being greedy here (remember AT&T, not Motorola sets the prices of phones/accessories they sell). And it would be competitive with a netbook with some advantages, since your phone would always carry the state of the activities you are working on.

So, where does this environment live? On the phone itself? It seems a little odd to me that you'd run a GNOME environment instead from the phone, instead of, say, Android, given as the user can't install arbitrary applications anyway.

I like the concept, and I look forward to seeing where this goes in another year or two.

I utterly fail to see how a keyb+screen peripheral that's more expensive, a lot less powerful, versatile, mature, easy-to-use... than a netbook may be of interest to me. They got the price so wrong that features don't matter.

Someone really needs to invent a wireless high bandwidth throughput system similar in design to such a device that I can link to a central server/ desktop (something with decent processing power). Now that would actually be an engineering feat.

I utterly fail to see how a keyb+screen peripheral that's more expensive, a lot less powerful, versatile, mature, easy-to-use... than a netbook may be of interest to me. They got the price so wrong that features don't matter.

I was actually kinda thinking that. Really the thought was, if this was Apple the product would still be on a work bench somewhere being tinkered with.

I really like the idea, and I can see people using their phones to plug into empty computer terminals at work/school/libraries. Just seems like it needs just a wee bit more polish. Hopefully by 2013 or so the idea will have caught on and have the cellphone hardware to power it.

Also, no on-board storage? So you have to waste your cellphone storage on the OS and other non-essentials?

Motorola envisions a future in which smartphones are at the heart of the connected lifestyle, adapting and integrating with peripherals to meet the user's computing needs.

I sure hope not. I don't want a future where I can only run locked down computing devices. Sure, you can buy the unlocked "developer" version for 3 times as much, but this is not the way computing should be going.

It seems like a game of conflicting imperatives. To make it perform well as a netbook, they're going to have to boost the performance considerably, by the article's testimony, and netbook performance isn't so hot to begin with; I'm going to want performance better than that for something I'm actually going to be seriously using as a laptop. But improving performance is going to hurt battery life when used as a phone. And this tension is fundamental to the concept, really; even if the hardware improves enough to make an acceptable compromise, you could still (theoretically, at least) get much better battery life by biasing that way, or much better performance by biasing in the other direction.

I could see Apple being successful at this because they already have apps like iWork, iMovie and GarageBand running on iOS. If there were a version of OpenOffice for the Atrix, that might help. Otherwise it seems the only advantage is a bigger window for web browsing and viewing photos. Perhaps instead of a netbook dock, a tablet dock might be more useful since most Android apps are designed around the touchscreen interface. Then again, if that were the case you wouldn't buy an Atrix and a Xoom...

Motorola envisions a future in which smartphones are at the heart of the connected lifestyle, adapting and integrating with peripherals to meet the user's computing needs.

I sure hope not. I don't want a future where I can only run locked down computing devices. Sure, you can buy the unlocked "developer" version for 3 times as much, but this is not the way computing should be going.

I'm gonna quote this, because it's so damned true. Motorola's lock-down fetish is annoying as fuck, and only keeps people who are interested by developments like this miles and miles away (on top of it costing way too much and only available locked and on-contract.)

And the iPad doesn't fulfill this niche how? Watch as a smartphone is blown away by a much better experience on a tablet... I mean yes, if you're going to carry around a pound it might as well be a netbook or tablet. Most people won't find a netbook light enough and have a big enough screen at the same time, so they'll choose tablets. And undoubtedly we'll have more powerful processors on a tablet that can hook up to a HDTV without making the battery life plummet to near zero. So, in a sense, Motorola is late to the game. Despite the promise of a WebTop interface, the iPad beats it in terms of apps and convenience. And I don't see Motorola catching up unfortunately, even if they can solve the cost issue.

Someone really needs to invent a wireless high bandwidth throughput system similar in design to such a device that I can link to a central server/ desktop (something with decent processing power). Now that would actually be an engineering feat.

The OnLive people are working on exactly that. Don't be fooled by the fact that they're focusing on 'just' games right now. The tech behind the scenes is most impressive.

Motorola envisions a future in which smartphones are at the heart of the connected lifestyle, adapting and integrating with peripherals to meet the user's computing needs.

I sure hope not. I don't want a future where I can only run locked down computing devices. Sure, you can buy the unlocked "developer" version for 3 times as much, but this is not the way computing should be going.

I'm gonna quote this, because it's so damned true. Motorola's lock-down fetish is annoying as fuck, and only keeps people who are interested by developments like this miles and miles away (on top of it costing way too much and only available locked and on-contract.)

Hmm. Flash 10.2 leaked beta is quite pleasant on my Xoom. May be it's Firefox and Flash 10.1 Linux version that are the culprit here.

May be instead of shipping Ubuntu Motorola should just ship Honeycomb along with its Chrome browser and Android version of Flash 10.2 for WebTop. I can't imagine Honeycomb doing bad for a desktop with mouse and keyboard. Plus user can still run their Android apps full screen without windowing,

dont see the point.if its the size and form factor of a laptop/netbook, why not use that?

I guess they were thinking you would only carry your phone - the docking platform would be "ubiquitous", and since it's stateless anyway (no internal storage, from what I've understood), you would simply find an unused one and plug your phone in. I think their dream is to see these docking platforms in all the libraries, cafés and schools/universities in the world.

Someone really needs to invent a wireless high bandwidth throughput system similar in design to such a device that I can link to a central server/ desktop (something with decent processing power). Now that would actually be an engineering feat.

The OnLive people are working on exactly that. Don't be fooled by the fact that they're focusing on 'just' games right now. The tech behind the scenes is most impressive.

Actually I've encountered that before and thanks for remidning me about it

Hopefully this tech will expand to allow such a use thus breaking free of the internet to ad-hoc home Intranets. Now that would be awesome.

dont see the point.if its the size and form factor of a laptop/netbook, why not use that?

I guess they were thinking you would only carry your phone - the docking platform would be "ubiquitous", and since it's stateless anyway (no internal storage, from what I've understood), you would simply find an unused one and plug your phone in. I think their dream is to see these docking platforms in all the libraries, cafés and schools/universities in the world.

Ding ding ding!

I have to say I'm disappointed in the stupidity of some of the commenters here who cannot grok this approach.

I was gonna say this must, indeed will be the future until I read comments by what are supposed to be technorati.

I personally don't see the draw. This all sounds like a great idea, except everything here can be accomplished better through the cloud. IMO this is a solution in search of a problem. The biggest gotcha is the inability to use a cell phone as a hotspot for a laptop... If that ability becomes widespread and cheap, the demand for anything like the Atrix will disappear.

dont see the point.if its the size and form factor of a laptop/netbook, why not use that?

I guess they were thinking you would only carry your phone - the docking platform would be "ubiquitous" ... in all the libraries, cafés and schools/universities in the world.

Ding ding ding!

I have to say I'm disappointed in the stupidity of some of the commenters here who cannot grok this approach.

I'll buy that -- no, make mine a double. My computing dream is to carry around data/cpu/smallscreen block, which clips into bigscreen/keyboard at work, and into reallybigscreen/keyboard/gpu at home, and snaps together with a slim telephony/battery pack for when I want something that fits in a pocket.

I understand the concept and welcome it.I can see this kind of a setup being absolutely perfect for some people.Possibly me.I carry a phone with capabilities that are largely wasted. This would really get folks "bang for the buck".

As long as it can be made to see my home network and utilize it's resources (media, printer, etc) something like this could be great for the "day to day" where I come home from work and surf a bit in front of the TV before turning in.

I don't like the locked down nature of the Motorola world and it's what is keeping me out of it for now.

dont see the point.if its the size and form factor of a laptop/netbook, why not use that?

I guess they were thinking you would only carry your phone - the docking platform would be "ubiquitous", and since it's stateless anyway (no internal storage, from what I've understood), you would simply find an unused one and plug your phone in. I think their dream is to see these docking platforms in all the libraries, cafés and schools/universities in the world.

Ding ding ding!

I have to say I'm disappointed in the stupidity of some of the commenters here who cannot grok this approach.

I was gonna say this must, indeed will be the future until I read comments by what are supposed to be technorati.

Mmmh sorry but convertible devices like this just embody the geek dream of achieving simplicity through unnecessary layers of complexity. And these kind of comments just highlight how difficult it is for some tech heads to get a sense for products.

Yeah pocketable mobile devices are getting more powerful every day so it's easy to see a future where you won't need anything else for personal computing needs. Big deal of a prediction.

Now, let's come to the actual product.

Software: what's the simplicity gain in relying on a single device for everything if you have to split up between two different OSes for that? With the "desktop" one being as locked down as the mobile one, rather slow and with virtually no applications available? All this fuss for using a desktop version of Firefox, putting prism-ed websites in the launcher, browsing media and accessing your phone in a sort of VM-like interface? Are you serious?

Hardware: a crappy laptop shell that costs like a netbook, just to use a pathetic excuse of a desktop OS on it. "Yeah but I don't have to lug a netbook and worry about its battery draining". Now realize that the shell is no less bulky than a netbook and you're sucking your phone battery for desktop use - so when it's gone, you're completely cut off from the world. Very convenient for your mobility needs.

This is just stupid.

And oh, about the dream of ubiquity of the docking platform... the Atrix has a HDMI and a micro-usb port, and it also supports bluetooth devices. You can also buy this if you like: http://static.arstechnica.com/02-28-2011/atrix19.jpgSo I guess you can already hook it up wherever you go without their shell thingy.

Now if Motorola would invest their developers efforts into some sort of big screen + mouse and keyboard interface layer for Android, instead of wasting it on a half assed locked down linux distro, this whole thing could start to make some sense.

I personally don't see the draw... IMO this is a solution in search of a problem...

Pretty much agree.

* There are other ways for a smart phone to work with a larger screen including;- Sync the phone with a laptop/netbook/desktop (which most smart phone users will be doing).- Transfer the phone apps/files to a tablet (at this time through a PC/laptop) which can include an external keyboard.

This kind of transfer between smart phones, PCs/laptops and tablets is going to get easier and more widespread over time. A smart phone powering a netbook shell is not needed imo.

dont see the point.if its the size and form factor of a laptop/netbook, why not use that?

I guess they were thinking you would only carry your phone - the docking platform would be "ubiquitous", and since it's stateless anyway (no internal storage, from what I've understood), you would simply find an unused one and plug your phone in. I think their dream is to see these docking platforms in all the libraries, cafés and schools/universities in the world.

Ding ding ding!

I have to say I'm disappointed in the stupidity of some of the commenters here who cannot grok this approach.

I was gonna say this must, indeed will be the future until I read comments by what are supposed to be technorati.

why go to the library just to get a bigger screen? the purpose of a library would be for comfort and a chair?

the web/cloud storage kills this approach as well, whats the point in carrying your personal info (phone) when things like Hotmail store it for you?

the web/cloud storage kills this approach as well, whats the point in carrying your personal info (phone) when things like Hotmail store it for you?

Nope. The hotmail/gmail/any free cloud app premise is "We're fetching the personal information you stored with us... but first, a word from our sponsors!" That and cloud bandwidth, for "out of wifi range" values of "cloud" is still shitty.

When bandwidth is better, and you can subscription-buy add-free non-data-mined cloud storage, then you'll be right about "kills this approach". Until that day, I wants my data safe, I wants it ad free, and I wants it high-bandwidth.

It's an interesting idea of course. But I just don't see why anyone would want to buy this over a netbook. It's the same amount of money, same weight, but severely more limited. Everything it can do, something else can do better.

There are many people (like me) who think that netbooks suck and aren't useful for anything at all. They're too damn small and too slow. I've been used to 1600x1200+ since around 1998. As to why I'd suffer through 1024x600 at this point, I have no idea. Add in the too tiny to use touchpad (or worse, a nipple), an overly cramped keyboard and a slow CPU, and what are you really doing with that thing other than wishing it weren't so cramped and slow?

As smart as these people seem, how can they make such stupid decisions that completely gut their desire?

I don't want a 'persistent' snapshot that shows up when I dock again plus full access through mobile view...I want one.single.os.

I don't want something 'like' a laptop with a hump on the back. How smart is it that you take one of the displays and HIDE it behind the OTHER display? That the only time the Laptop Dock looks finished is when the device is IN YOUR POCKET and the dock is all folded up. So...it looks dorky when you're USING it. Riiight.

This is just another one of MANY MANY examples where people say 'wouldn't it be cool if?' and they leap (Ready, Fire, Aim!) without actually iterating on a USEAGE exercise.